Maravi

There's no hospital drugs shortage-MoH

There's no hospital drugs shortage-MoH
By Masuzyo Chakwe
Sun 18 Dec. 2011, 13:57 CAT

THE Ministry of Health says no user fees are supposed to be charged for people receiving heathcare services at primary level. And the ministry's acting spokesperson Dr Maximillian Bweupe says there is no shortage of drugs in the country. In an interview on Thursday, Dr Bweupe explained that the guidance and policy directive was very clearly given by President Michael Sata when he opened Parliament.

During a tour of Ndola Central Hospital on Monday by Copperbelt Minister John Kafuna, the minister said it was unfortunate that patients continue paying to access medical services when the government had abolished user fees in hospitals.

But Ndola Central Hospital senior medical superintendent Dr Dande Malawo said the institution had continued charging user fees because it had not received a written memo from the Ministry of Health on abolition of user fees

But Dr Bweupe said following the directive from the President, this meant that preventive and curative services at primary healthcare level - from the health centers to the district levels - were all supposed to be free.

"And this had now been extended to urban areas because initially in about 2006, the user fees were waived for rural areas but this has been extended to all urban areas as well. So what this means is that for people who seek care at primary level, they are not supposed to be charged fees; these include registration fees, admission fees and even when these patients are referred to higher centers, it means that even there because they came in through that system at primary care, they are not supposed to be charged fees," he said.

He said finance minister Alexander Chikwanda reaffirmed this when he presented the budget.

Dr Bweupe said the permanent secretary Dr Peter Mwaba had written a memorandum to the Secretary to the Cabinet for him to provide guidance on the implementation.

He said Dr Mwaba also held a meeting with all the provincial medical officers a month ago.

"So the clear guidance is that the user fees have been removed. What is going to remain is what is called bypass fees; when you decide not to go through the primary health system and you refer yourself to a higher centre, for example, if you go directly to UTH without passing through the clinic and general hospital, it means you have bypassed the referral system and there is a fee which will be charged to you by the hospital. So bypass fees still remain and the high cost services will be attracting the normal high cost fees," he explained.

"So having said that even where we have the bypass fees remaining, emergency cases are still very much exempt from paying any fees."

On shortage of drugs in the hospitals, Dr Bweupe said looking at the weekly drug store and drug status and what was in the pipeline, there was currently no shortage of drugs.

He explained that UTH being a referral hospital only stocks highly specialised drugs.

He said UTH is not expected to stock ordinary drugs stocked at the lower level clinics.

He said according to the stock status that was normally supplied, the drugs were available in the local clinics.

"You will realise that in any normal logistic system, you might find some mal-distribution where one area over-requested or was over-supplied with one issue and it creates a temporary imbalance in another area. But when you look at what drugs and products are available in the country, they are what we need to have and our drug status is maintained at a very high level," said Dr Bweupe.

Labels: MICHAEL SATA, MINISTRY OF HEALTH, USER FEES

posted by MrK @ 4:51 PM